


Ours is not a hero's song

by Kyriadamorte



Series: Kyri's Finnrose Week 2019 fics [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 10:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19462405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyriadamorte/pseuds/Kyriadamorte
Summary: In the stories her grandmother told her, when the hero and heroine meet each other, it's usually very dramatic and portentous with some sort of prophecy in the mix. Possibly a ballad. The meeting itself is often a daring rescue or, on the other end of the spectrum, a thrilling and heart-wrenching battle. There aren't any other people around or, if there are, they aren't really very important. Time slows down and everyone - the storyteller, the listener, the hero, the heroine - everyone knows it's the beginning of something special and important.Their meeting is nothing like that.





	Ours is not a hero's song

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 4 - Alternate Meetings - at Finnrose Week 2019
> 
> Might eventually get spun up into a longer multichapter fic :-)
> 
> Note: A blink and you'll miss it mention of pregnancy (not Rose's)

In the stories her grandmother told her, when the hero and heroine meet each other, it's usually very dramatic and portentous with some sort of prophecy in the mix. Possibly a ballad. The meeting itself is often a daring rescue or, on the other end of the spectrum, a thrilling and heart-wrenching battle. There aren't any other people around or, if there are, they aren't really very important. Time slows down and everyone - the storyteller, the listener, the hero, the heroine - everyone _knows_ it's the beginning of something special and important.

Their meeting is nothing like that.

The transport full of troopers lands with both far too much and not nearly enough fanfare.Yes, here are two dozen more people brought to your home to make sure you break your back ruining your own planet. Yes, they will hurt you. Yes, they will kill you. Yes, they will make you watch while they do those things to the people you love.

Yes, this is not the first nor the last time.

If pressed, Rose wouldn't be able to point out which one was him; they're all a wall of faceless, menacing, skull-like white.She wonders if he remembers her.It's possible; she'd tripped and fallen, spilling her satchel of smelt clattering to the ground. If this were a story, he would have broken rank to help her pick it up.Their hands would have touched and through the armor she would have felt his soul, his compassion, his humanity reach out towards her.

But he doesn't.

Maybe she shouldn't count that as their first meeting.

~

The next time goes like this.

Rose is waiting in line for food.It's been a full day since she's eaten; she gave her rations card to her cousin Katren.Apparently the First Order doesn't understand that pregnant people do, in fact, need more food than they're willing to shell out.

(Most people need more food than what the First Order is willing to shell out, but that's another discussion entirely.)

Her stomach is going to eat itself and she feels lightheaded.She's not entirely sure what ingredients have been put in the watery soup they're serving today, but the bland, muddy substance has never smelled so good.

As she nears the front of the line, three of the four troopers are arguing over a drill they'd had that morning.Rose doesn't catch the detail of it - someone hadn't been properly covering someone's something - but the high tempers combined with the blasters being waved about has her clutching her bowl with nerves.

Still, when she reaches the front, she notices that none of their eyes (or, at least, the approximate place where their eyes should be) are on her.She's going to risk it.She scoops her allotted portion into the bowl.And then, quickly, another half ladle.

She thinks she's made it fully away when-

"Stop right there!"

_Shit._

"Did you take two portions?" the tallest trooper snaps, crowding her space.

Rose shakes her head, clenching her jaw shut.She doesn't trust herself to speak - she always says too much when she's nervous.There's a blaster in her face now, fuck, what is she going to do?

"I didn't see anything," says the one stormtrooper standing off to the side.

"You sure, FN-2187?"

"Yeah," he answers, slightly shaky even through the voice modulator.Then, stronger, "Maybe if you'd been paying attention you wouldn't have had to ask."

It's hardly a heroic rescue and it's only later that she learns it's him.

~

Rose is pretty sure she can't call their next meeting a heart wrenching battle, either.Or even a daring duel. At best, it's a snarky squabble.

She wants to hate them.The stormtroopers, that is.She had when she was younger, with all the hatred a child could muster.Her parents never had, though.Nor Paige - not really.

Rose had asked why, just the once.Her mother had gotten sad and put on a kettle to boil without saying anything. Her father had cleaned his filthy boots harder, chasing a shine that would never come back.

Paige had pulled her aside, held Rose's small hands in her own. "After I was born, but before you were, our parents had a son.Our brother.His name is…was…is…Halden. Hal, for short. They came and took him when he was two years old."  
  
"Took him? Why?" At the time, Rose had very little use for babies and she couldn't imagine what the First Order wanted with them.

"Where do you think they get the troopers, Rose?"

She hadn't really thought about it before.There was always this assumption that they wanted to be there.They they believed everything the First Order did. That they liked hurting Rose and her family and her friends.

And maybe they did.Maybe they do.But it's a lot harder to _really_ hate someone when you know they were taken crying and screaming from their family and forced to be a weapon.

It's probably the reason she doesn't smack FN-2187 when he asks her why she hasn't taken her mother to the infirmary.

(Well, that and he's still wearing his helmet so it would probably end up accomplishing nothing more than a sore palm and a trip to an isolation room.)

"She doesn't need to go," she grits out between clenched teeth, trying to focus on pulling her overfull satchel to the transport cart. 

"She's coughing pretty badly; I've heard her.And she's missed the last three days of work."He's walking beside her as he trudges along instead of maintaining the usual position at the entrance.

"She's _fine_ ," Rose hisses, angry and panicking all at once - the one feeding into the other and back again. "And what's it to you, Paige and I are covering her loads, aren't we? It's not damaging your precious quotas."  
  
He backs up, startled, unsure, _afraid,_ even.

(Which is ridiculous because she's a full head shorter than him at least - maybe more, doubled over with the weight of the smelt - and _he's_ the one with the blaster.)

"I…I wasn't thinking about quotas." Right, sure, like anyone from the First Order ever thinks of anything else. "But…if she's sick…don't you want her to get better?"

Roe wonders later if it's the shock or the earnest concern in his voice or perhaps just her own stupidity that has her answering him truthfully. "Of course, but I'm not really in the mood to find out if the First Order thinks it makes more financial sense to save her or kill her by picking up her body after she went in for a _cough_."

He stops cold and doesn't try speak to her after that.She finishes her work in silence.

~

Three meetings, all of them wildly underwhelming.

Not quite what you'd expect from the leaders of a revolution.

(He bumps into her, knocks her to the ground.The hand he uses to help her rise slips two vials of medicine into her fingers.Maybe this was when it truly began.)


End file.
